Entries with tag community .

Am writing this for people who are actively leave the mainstream 9-5 society and move into disrepute subcultures to live their lifes.

Issues of group organisation crop up reugally and are generally badly resolved leading to a consistent life sapping churning of bad will and trails of failed groups.

For most people directly in these subcultures this is not an important issue as the majority just dip in and out of this shifting social soup for them the mainstream is a easy fall-back. They are less likely to notice and by the time they do notice the churning of growth and decay, they are ready to leave back to the (dulling) safety of the mainstream. Rinse and repeat is a apt description of the passing of each short generation, and the a causation of alt-culture haveing a bad reputation in the mainstream.

Over the next few posts am hoping to have a look at a few different groups am involved in that are at different stages of “crises”. Lets look at two concepts from the 19-20th century first:

Small groups of a less radical nature tend to use one of these organising structures for their spaces (the wikipedia links need filling out)

A village hall, is a non commercial space for community events that is a open space for for all the social/political/cultural activity a community holds in common. Its a “neutral” space for groups to build community cohesion. It will generally be run by a elected community of members of an active and open local group.

A church hall will share many of the same uses and structures but will have a tendency to be more narrowly focused in the areas the church has negative attitude. Ie. a Catholic church would probably not host a meeting of groups supporting abortion issues, more conservative churches would not host the young socialists or the anerakist black flag legal support etc they may have issues with other religions usesing the space. In general the would be “moralistic and idealogical” restrictions on the open use of the community space that would highlight some parts of the commnerty and disadvantage others. The final arbiter would probably be a the head of the local management committy reporting to the vicar would would be sacturned by the church hiracky.

The recsion we have overlapping Village Halls and Church Halls in most villages should be obvious for these two short paragraphs. In the 20th century both of these older institutions were supplemented by a third more modern institution that directly replaced the church focus and expanded on the role of the village hall in larger urban arrears.

The community centres grow out of the spread of ideas about social justice and the value of couture in the middle of the 20th century.

In the late 20th century these areas were then degraded by commercialisation, their community empowerment focus becoming lost (must pay way).

They also suffered from the suffocation of bureaucratisation with was a produced of mid 20th century thinking and organising.

We have 3 of the more traditinal mainstream approaches to a “space for the community” with the “romanisations of the past” thinking we are currently rebooting older ideas, the idea of a village hall is coming back (and in more conservative circles church halls are being re-introduced). Its good to think for a moment that they were products of their time and place and will need rebooting in a form that is appropriate for the different 21st century thinking/society we live in today.

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The longest and friendliest village in the UK is actually the London Canal Network. Its a tight-knit community of eccentrics and iconoclasts, mums and kids, working people and retires, a cross section of life live in a continuously roving/changing mix.

For the last 3 years or so James (and the Butty) have been providing a floating gathering place for this community, while trying to make a living as a events space. He was becoming exorsted and the sums went adding up so he decided to sell the Butty a few months ago, the was a uproar from the community of boaters who had been relying on this resources, a couple Alice and Ian decided to take on the project and grow it into a not for profit company – the Village Butty Project was born.

For this to become sustainable and independent the Butty needs a companion boat to move it, provide catering, light and working space. The is now a fund raise going on to make this happen. The boat has been sourced, the money is need to renovate into being the companion space to make the village hall Butty a self standing project. To keep this invaluable resource working on the “cut”.

You can help, clink on the links to find out more and directly support the project:

Our project is basically about technological standards – It isn’t about what people do with these standards – the standards them selves lean in the direction we politically desire inherently.

And these technological standards will not be brought about by technology, but the social use of technology, so we are creating a community of people around these standards – and it is this community that will create the technological standard. The technology by it self is powerless and will wither with out being embraced by an active and affective community. So to repeat it is a technological project, which can only come out of a community project. If we treat it as only one of these (as people commonly do, then neither will work).